Darkness Falls

A lost poem

I wrote this poem thirty-five years ago, in the depths of my addiction. I thought I’d lost it forever when most of my things were stolen about twenty years ago. Lucky for me, I found a long-lost digital copy of it.

When I created this, I was young, lost, angry, reckless, and drowning in things I didn’t understand or have the ability to name. Trauma. Shame. Self-destruction. A terrible, devouring hunger for an unknown that consumed everyone and everything in its path, including my first wife and son.

It was a desperate search for something, anything, that might make the horrible grinding noise inside me stop.

Reading it now is strange. I can feel the darkness in it. I can hear the melodrama of youth too, of course, but underneath that, I can hear the truth. I was sailing into the dark despair of night and pretending I was the captain, when really, I was being assailed by hurricane-force winds I did not understand.

I’m not that man anymore.

But I was. I think it matters to honor the voice that survived long enough to become me.

---

For Bougie Hippie, Cyn, who keeps telling the truth about what it’s like to be inside the mess.

Get your copy of her newly released book here - It's Messy In Here - by Cyn Posner

Darkness Falls

I sail the dark sea
and revel in my depravity
in search of what
I do not know
the dark wind howls
takes me we’er it will go
the sails do fill
and the water it does flow
farther into night
my ship does surely go
in search of what
I do not know

I sail the dark sea
and revel in my insanity
in search of what
I do not know
my brain it howls
wanders we’er it will go
my head does fill
and my adrenaline does flow
farther into night
my mind does surely go
in search of what
I do not know

I sail the dark sea
and revel in my profanity
in search of what
I do not know
the dark creatures howl
take me down to where they go
their cups do fill
and my blood it does flow
farther into night
where the demons surely go
in search of what
I do not know

I sail the dark sea
and revel in my calamity
in search of what
I do not know
my eyes do scream
wander we’er they may go
my eyes can’t see
for my soul does surely flow
farther into night
my lifeblood surely goes
in search of what
I do not know